A Guile of Dragons (30 page)

There were times when Aloê, thain-attendant to the vocate Naevros syr Tol, didn't approve of the world. With all due respect to Creator, Sustainer, and King, she was inclined to view the world as a botched job—something that barely limped along because the best gave their best to make it work. Without any self-consciousness, she counted herself among one of those best who made sacrifices, and sometimes she wondered whether the world was worth the trouble.

At its best, Aloê had to admit, the world was very good indeed. A fair day's sailing, for instance. Or even sailing through a storm—there was a fine narrow excitement to that. Sailing was the way the rest of the world should be but rarely was. Conditions varied infinitely; no two days, no two stretches of water were really the same. But the principles of action never varied, though actions themselves had to suit the infinite variety of actual environments.

But, though parts of life were like this, life as a whole was different. Storms in life were usually inner storms—as if the principles of action were in constant flux, though the environment itself never varied. Life was always a bother, and no one really understood. . . .

The rough open bareness of her surroundings was depressing her, she guessed. Talk about an unchanging environment: you couldn't get a more monotonous landscape than the Long Plain of Westhold—outside a painting by Zavell, maybe. And, unlike a painting, the plain went on and on, day's ride after day's ride. . . .

Determination gave her, if not a way out, then a way to cope. She kept riding north, through the immense harvested fields of Westhold. Their rough blankness gave solid form to her mood. Her thoughts were like crows, finding some invisible sustenance in the bleak emptiness. Still, she rode on. She had a task; she would perform it, even if it meant leaving her beloved Southhold, and even the comparative civilization of A Thousand Towers, and passing into the far north, where the people were as squat and pale (and approximately as talkative) as mushrooms.

A village broke the blank emptiness of the horizon. Gratefully she spurred her horse toward it. The low walls of its houses, rising about her, were a welcome shelter from the blankness of the sky, the bare dead prospect of the empty fields.

There was a market in progress. She stopped at the tavern and bought a cup of wine. Having drunk this, she left her horse in front of the tavern and wandered through the market.

She stood for a while before a storyteller, listening to a version of
First Merlin's Song.
The crowd seemed to take it all pretty seriously: Merlin planting the banefire hedges around the Dead Corain. And if they were already dead, Aloê wondered, what was the fuss about? She had grown up on the southern coast and was inclined to think of
First Merlin's
as an inferior grade of ghost story. She was quite fond of
Second
and
Third Merlin's—
they were more her sort of story. And she thought Merlin's portrait (in the Hall of Guardians at New Moorhope) was a masterwork: crooked and cultivated, intelligent and imperious, Merlin had been the epitome of a Guardian. The black cloak, betokening exile, which hung beside the painting simply added the air of danger inevitable in any high prospect.

Without taking her eyes off the storyteller, she began to feel unsheltered, as if she were out on the Long Plain again. Turning to go, she found a group of townspeople were gaping at her in something like amazement. A compliment, in its way, but somehow she was not flattered. One dark-haired pale-skinned heavy woman, standing close to her, was staring at her dark golden hair and darker skin with a dim astonished longing that was not even envy. She smiled at the woman, but suddenly, jarringly (it was the world again, the botched discordant world) she wondered what it would be like to be this woman: incontestably ugly, probably poor, scratching out a living in these dim gigantic plains.

Realizing that, with these thoughts, her expression had changed, Aloê smiled again at the woman and walked past her, leaving the crowd with a careful slowness. When she reached her horse she mounted and rode off northward.

She reached Three Hills at sunset. There really were hills—she had begun to fear that the maps lied, that the plain went on forever. In fact, though the three hills for which the estate were named stood somewhat apart, there were more hills beyond them and, farther yet, mountains piercing the horizon like pale thorns.

Turning back to bid an angry good-bye to the plains she saw that the overcast sky was breaking up: there were long stretches of mysterious blue among the rough gray pinnacles of cloud. Looking east, she saw the clouds part there, admitting the last rays of sunlight into the world. The light struck red and purplish blue tints off the undersides of the broken clouds, deepening in contrast the narrow blue canyons of empty sky. As light fell on the yellow-gray fields, transmuting them in an instant to coarse bristling gold, she felt a sudden pang of guilt, as if the plains were a person she had somehow misjudged. She turned away and rode on.

Riding up among the Three Hills, she saw what she supposed was the manor house built up to and into the side of one of the hills, the one farthest north and west. Descending from the house along an unpaved path was a coarsely dressed workman. She reined in close to him and said, “Greetings, good tenant. Can you guide me to the lord of the manor?”

“Not.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not a tenant. Don't have your tenant-farming in this part of Westhold. Anyway, my family owns this place.” The man's voice was brisk, but agreeable.

Aloê happened to know that the family which owned Three Hills currently consisted of Illion, whom she knew, and his brother Lorion. So this must be the master of the manor whom she had addressed so cavalierly. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“Doesn't bother me. Some of the workers bridle at the term—just so you know.”

“I'm sorry,” she said again, and was instantly angry at herself for the inane repetition. She was relieved when he matter-of-factly ignored it.

“You're looking for Naevros, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“We knew you were coming, of course. Glad to see you. The stables are over there.” He nodded pleasantly and walked away.

“Thank you,” she said, somewhat at a loss. She had thought he was about to tell her where Naevros was. But she could find out by herself, no doubt, and it made sense to stable her horse.

The abrupt lasting twilight of the Wardlands had risen by the time she had reached a large outbuilding beyond the southeast hill. She guessed it might be a stable. But half the walls were down and no horses were visible. The gray shapes of some workmen stood aside in a group.

The workmen were discussing whether they should bring lights and continue the job or leave it as it was until morning.

Aloê had a gift of breaking graciously into conversations. She had a way with clients and tenants generally. She practiced both of these to a fine pitch on her family's estate in the Southhold. Her family was an important one on the southern coast, and she had grown up under the halo of power. It was a pity, she had often thought dispassionately, that the estate would never come to her, except under the most disastrous circumstances. (There were two sisters and a brother between her and the primacy.) She really had the best knack in the family for exercising power for the general good. But it was fair, too, that capable scions of a noble house go out "into the waters of the world" (as her family said). Better that than to stay at home, become a threadbare member of the gentry, watching one's descendants fade into the client class.

“Gentlemen,” she said to the workers (the word came somewhat stickily to her tongue, but she would not make the mistake of calling them tenants; for all she knew she was addressing half the gentry of the Westhold), “I had heard there was stabling in this direction.”

There was a pause, then one of the workers said, “Why? Is your horse pregnant?”

“Shouldn't be riding a pregnant horse,” another commented.

“I'm not,” she replied icily. For a moment she thought they were making some sort of coarse joke.

“Souther!” said one of them. “Look at her seat! Never mind it, Thain; let your horse run free. There's water and fodder, brookways, and the night rider's between here and Hunting Wood. We'll call her for you when you're needing.”

“Will you?” she said, a kind of challenge in her voice. She knew it was senseless, but she could not help it. She hated riding, and she didn't like the Westholder's comment about how she sat in the saddle, if that's what it had been.

One of them held her stirrup as she dismounted. His clothes were encrusted with dirt and manure, and he was sweating considerably more than her horse. She was about to turn away when she noticed with quiet horror that he was Naevros syr Tol.

“Shall we have you pitch in, Aloê?” he said pleasantly. “I think we have a spare shovel here, somewhere.” He had noted and understood her reaction, of course; their tense rapport could be embarrassingly intense at times.

But she was nothing if not game. “Sharpen the blade, Vocate, and lead me to it.” She had long declined to learn sword-fighting from him; it was a sore point between them at one time.

A chorus of protests arose from the other workers. Men from the west and east were narrow-minded about working with women as equals. To keep her from carrying out her threat they decided to quit work for the day. That suited Aloê well enough: she was tired from riding and she hated dirt. But she insisted on tending to her horse herself, while the Westholders stood about and shuffled their feet; she carried the saddle up to the house, also. Naevros reached for the bridle, and she handed it to him without a thought.

She wanted to tell him about the business she had completed for him in A Thousand Towers. He had originally planned to stay in the great city for two or three calls of Trumpeter after the Station was dismissed, but for some reason had changed his mind and rushed off with Illion and Noreê to Three Hills instead. He had left Aloê, with virtually no guidance, to finish his affairs in the city. This sort of situation, which arose quite rarely, was termed by thains “carrying the cloak” of the vocate in question. It was supposed to be a mark of respect and trust—in fact, only a step away from receiving one's own red cloak and a place to stand at Station. The whole business had been challenging and exciting, and there were some things she felt she had carried off rather neatly.

Yet she couldn't speak. After the immensity of the harvested plains, walking among the gray heavy movements of workmen in the blue dusk, her thoughts had a hollow ring to them. She imagined speaking them aloud and shook her head impatiently. No. It galled her that all she had done for the past month seemed trivial among a group of men with sweat drying on their faces. She knew the feeling would pass, though. The time was not right, that was all. Restless, she stepped forward lightly, leaving Naevros a step or two behind.

Noreê was dreaming in the Healing Wood.